UK: Mainstreaming Racism

Shortly after the IRA had tried to wipe out the British cabinet and assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, Jeremy Corbyn invited the Sinn Fein/IRA leaders to Parliament.

Jeremy Corbyn did not spend his time bolstering the crucial moderate forces in Northern Ireland. Instead he pushed forward the most violent and anti-democratic forces in the conflict.

Most sinisterly, he has been a constant champion of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, two men who were convicted of the 1994 bomb attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in London.

Rather than admit to having spent decades palling up to the worst anti-Semites and Israel-haters worldwide, Corbyn is trying to claim that he has in fact been involved -- deep undercover, away from the eyes of any respectable negotiator -- in a "peace process."

Whatever political angle you come from, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader is a seismic change in British politics. Political wonks in the UK have become fond of comparing him with Michael Foot, who led Labour to a disastrous election defeat in 1983, and whose party manifesto for that election was famously described as the "longest suicide note in history." The election of Corbyn is principally of interest at home and abroad not because of his far-left wing views on economics, nationalization and the rest, but for the fact that it mainstreams current bigotry and racism.

For the three decades that he has been sitting on the backbenches in Parliament, Jeremy Corbyn's main concerns have included support for the hardest wing of Irish Republicanism and an opposition to Israel that has seen him embrace any and all opponents of the Jewish state. The same mind-set of bolstering the worst and most violent people on (in each case) one specific sectarian side, can be seen in both obsessions.

During the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, for instance, many people supported the Catholic population of the area and the cause of a united Ireland. There were many mainstream politicians, such as the SDLP's John Hume, whom you could support if that was what you cared about. But Jeremy Corbyn did not spend his time bolstering the crucial moderate forces in Northern Ireland. Instead he pushed forward the most violent and anti-democratic forces in the conflict. Shortly after the IRA had tried to wipe out the British cabinet and assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Brighton in 1984, Jeremy Corbyn invited the Sinn Fein/IRA leaders to the House of Commons. In the years that followed, he repeatedly honoured active murderers within in the IRA (for instance, in observing a minute's silence for the IRA cell killed while on "active service" in Loughgall in 1987). Asked on the recent campaign trail whether he would "condemn" the actions of the IRA that led to thousands of bloody deaths and injuries, Jeremy Corbyn repeatedly refused to answer the question.

This matters because Mr. Corbyn brings the same extremism to the other political cause he most cares about in foreign policy. As the general public learned during the Labour leadership campaign, Corbyn's associations in the area of the Israeli-Palestinian context could hardly be more extreme. He is on camera describing both Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends." He has repeatedly attended events organized by "Deir Yassin Remembered," an organization run by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Corbyn has honoured the anti-Semitic preacher, Raed Salah, and described him as an "honoured citizen." He has spent years sharing platforms with extremists such as the anti-Semitic Hezbollah-trained Dyab Abu Jahjah. Most sinisterly of all, he has been a constant champion of Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, two men who were convicted of the 1994 bomb attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in London.

In 2009, Jeremy Corbyn (left) said: "It will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hezbollah will be speaking. I also invited friends from Hamas to come and speak as well." Pictured in the middle is Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Pictured at right is Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

On his way to becoming Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters repeatedly attempted to dismiss these extremist links. They most commonly derided them as "smears." But when they were confronted with the facts and still had to come up with some explanation, they most commonly made the claim that Corbyn himself made when confronted with his one-sided support for the IRA during the "Troubles" and of the most fanatical anti-Israel extremists in the Middle East. The claim then was that Corbyn was not in fact shilling for one side in each conflict but that he was engaged in the work of "peace."

On Northern Ireland, he claimed that he was not in fact an obscure backbencher but was intricately involved in the peace process. Precisely the same claim has been made regarding the Middle East. Rather than admit to having spent decades palling up to the worst anti-Semites and Israel-haters worldwide, Corbyn is trying to claim that he has in fact been involved -- deep undercover, away from the eyes of any respectable negotiator – in a "peace process." Why did he meet with Eisen? Peace process. Why did he meet with Hamas? Peace process. Why did he meet with Salah? "Inter-faith issues." You would have to be a child to fall for this. Unfortunately for the Labour party and the country, many of the thousands of people who joined the Labour party to vote for Corbyn are practically children. Or adults who are at the very least radically unbothered about having as a party leader a man who has supported the violent enemies of the United Kingdom and our only democratic ally in the Middle East.

People ask how all this will go; the only possible answer is that it could go in any direction. Perhaps Corbyn will play it carefully, as he has in his first fortnight. There have been serious mis-steps for him. Refusing to sing our national anthem during a service at St Paul's Cathedral to commemorate the Battle of Britain was one such problem. His supporters said it showed principle from a man who does not believe in God and opposes the monarchy. For many voters -- including traditional Labour voters -- his refusal looked more as if it came from a man who did not have pride enough in his own country to sing our national anthem. Footage of him singing the Internationale (Red Flag) a few days earlier did not help. Of course, wiser observers could see this was all just part of a continuum: of course a man who has always supported our country's enemies would not sing our national anthem.

Perhaps Corbyn will indeed lead his party into a general election in 2020, thereby probably wiping out the Labour party as a historic political force. But we live in unpredictable times. This is an era when conspiracy theories abound, and where the internet and information technology have helped to stir up old and dark hatreds. It is just as possible that the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn at the summit of British politics heralds something else: the mainstreaming of perhaps the oldest hatreds of all.

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18 Reader Comments

robert davis • Oct 2, 2015 at 05:06

What Jeremy Corbyn calls "peace process" is the way to destroy Israel and this I am sure he has been actively working for all those years. However he has not even enough brains to see he won't have any success in his intrigues nor his communist dogmas. He is a fool and will remain so until the fools who elected him understand he cannot make millionaires out of cretins like them simply by taking away millionaires' money because millionaires will send out their money when they will not depart from England themselves. Thereafter whose money will he take away? The money from the poor? With that kind of change he will not be able to buy even a cigarette for himself. Communism makes everybody poor.

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Israel L. Monzon Gonzalez • Oct 1, 2015 at 23:01

What Mr. Corbyn doesn't realize is that to Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Boko Haram etc, he's just another kuffar. The only reason they stroke his ego and raise his hand in front of crowds is because he's useful, that is until all the Jews and "far-right, fascist, racist, bigoted, intolerant, fossilized cranks" (ie: the genuine progressives who use our freedoms to call attention to the damage done by political Islam and enablers like him) are gone. Then it's his turn to convert or die, and what good will his hatred of Jews be then? Well, at least it will facilitate the conversion process since unlike most of us he would have no issues with the litany of racist hadiths and choice slurs directed at Jews in the Koran.

Now Mr. Finkelstein is far more conspicuously odious and reprehensible. He is "proud to meet the Hezbollah people" he tells reporters. He is happy to denounce anyone critical of Islam or the Palestinians in anyway as a racist ignoramus. For him the Palestinians can do no wrong. He's a prototype of the smug, patronizing racism of the political left that afflicts western society.

He wears no such kid gloves when it comes to dealing with fellow Jews including Holocaust survivors like some of his family. He is after all the one who not too subtly leveled the outrageous accusation of profiteering from the Holocaust against Elie Weisel while himself profiting handsomely from a book denouncing precisely that. Not content with that, he props up and colludes with people who have openly vowed to finish what Hitler started and that includes him in case he hasn't realized it. He accuses Israel's supporters of sponsoring genocide and much like his accusations against Weisel, they have a hypocritical tinge to them. After all, Hezbollah is a genocidal organization yet this Quisling schmoozes with them and makes pathetic excuses for their disgusting attitudes and behaviors towards their fellow men.

Whatever these two and others like them think they are, the reality is that no sane person would mistake them for men of peace. They are men of twisted morality and non-existent rational inquiry. Worse yet, neither of them can listen to opposing opinions without resorting to casual slander. At least Corbyn doesn't have students at his mercy in a major university though. He does hate his own people and culture with the same lopsided passion of Finkelstein though and both men will be held in the utmost contempt by future generations. Both these men are as abhorrent as Quisling or Petain.

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Mels. • Oct 1, 2015 at 07:13

Why haven't the popular media the courage to inform us that we have a traitor in our midst? I once said that if Corbyn ever becomes PM, and the other traitor Galloway becomes mayor of London, I shall leave the UK. That still stands.

Two of David Cameron's uplifting speeches gave me hope that even when Europe falls, England will prevail. But now Corbyn pressures Cameron to let in more Muslims on moral grounds, while Mrs May bans the use of water cannon at violent demos "because it could hurt people." You couldn't even make that up!

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Reuven • Sep 30, 2015 at 19:20

The question is then, who does he hate more, the English or the Jews. I hope he's still Labour's leader in 2020, then the election will be between UKIP & the conservatives.

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Edward P Campbell • Sep 30, 2015 at 11:56

Just like Ken Livingstone and Tony Blair with the IRA. It's called 'Political Pragmatism'. :)

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Prof • Sep 29, 2015 at 19:59

I have maintained for many years that the lunatic left, from anywhere in the world, have in common three things: an inability to perceive the reality in which we all exist, an extremely distorted view of history, (usually rewritten to fit their cause de jour), and an infinite capacity to convince themselves that black is white.

Throughout his far too lengthy career, Mr. Corbyn has allied himself with enemies of the crown. In less enlightened times he would have entertained the peasants, briefly, as the star attraction at a draw & quarter exhibition. Now of course, he is lionized by the press as he consorts with our most dangerous enemies.

As Mr. Murray concludes, it may be that Mr. Corbyn's election as Labour leader presages,"the mainstreaming of perhaps the oldest hatreds of all."

One hopes, and prays, that this is not so.

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Brian Goldfarb • Sep 29, 2015 at 18:01

And when he welcomes back into the Labour Party the likes of Dave Cellist, expelled in 1988 or so as an "entreyist", then Corbyn's links to Trotskyites become ever clearer.

If the hard left doesn't implode before then, the Labour Party is likely to in 2020, as Douglas Murray forecasts. Which is hardly good news for a democratic polity.

Michael Foot was at least a democratic and almost cuddly, even if he was the godfather of that election manifesto.

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John • Sep 29, 2015 at 17:24

Why oh why isn't his quasi patriotism headline in the tabloid papers? He should ask his friends in Hamas and Hezbollah to intervene in Saudi!

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Barry Meislin • Sep 29, 2015 at 16:04

Alas, "poor" Michael Foot did not, in his day, have the same demographic available to him as the current Labour leader.

Currently, anti-Corbynites are certain in their belief that Corbyn will destroy the Labour Party.

However, the Britain of 2015 is not the Britain of 1983; and the glee (or consternation, given one's political affiliation) at Corbyn's ascendance leading necessarily to Labour's demise, may prove to be premature; for it remains to be seen whether Britain will be hijacked politically by the forces of darkness, hate, deceit and misdirection, which will be disseminated ferociously and indiscriminately by Corbyn and his minions.

At the very minimum, the politics of pure hate and corrupting untruth, which has already infringed upon the mainstream from time to time, will explode onto the center stage of British political life, and thus by necessity undermine the many centuries of basic British decency in the body politic.

And even should Corbyn go down -- in trying to explain, and impose, the ways of Marx to Englishman (and Englishwoman) -- then he will do his absolute very best to bring Britain down with him.

No, it is too early by far to celebrate anything.

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Doug Mayfield • Sep 29, 2015 at 14:54

...flock together.

"As the general public learned during the Labour leadership campaign, Corbyn's associations in the area of the Israeli-Palestinian context could hardly be more extreme."

This should come as no real surprise. The Left is dedicated to establishing a socialist police state, modeled on Castro's Cuba and Chavez's Venezuela, wherever they can do so.

To bring that about, they seek to destroy freedom and individual rights everywhere.

So, vicious murdering tyrants, whether Islam driven such as the PA or from the violent fringes in Northern Ireland, are natural allies for a man like Corbyn.

The voters in Britain would do well to send Mr. Corbyn and his party into the ashcan of history as they so richly deserve.

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Bindon Blood • Sep 29, 2015 at 14:37

This fossilized Bolshevik will, if he gets the chance, drag Britain into the depths of Socialist misery, a sort of East Germany in the 21st century. Does this throwback to the Cold War and Socialist soul destroying dreariness and gloom of the Soviets really think the people of Britain want to live like that?

The failed, murderous Socialist dictatorship of the bourgeois left has been chucked in the waste bin by all the peoples who have actually suffered under it. Corbyn's ideology always translates into a dictatorial, impoverished, totalitarian nightmare.

Corbyn is the usual rich renegade who always sees themselves on top of the dung heap no matter what happens or goes on below. In his Orwellian society he won't be slumming it with the workers on a council estate, he's O'Brien rather than Winston Smith. He's got his millionaire North London house and I suppose he actually inherited (gasp) all or part of his family's fortune (what price Marxism then Corbyn? ); 7-bedroomed manor houses don't come cheap in England. The usual well off, never raised a sweat hypocrite that is peculiar to the left. Anyone who supports him needs a brain transplant. At least he could have a decent shave. He's a 66 year old student activist stuck in a 60/70s time warp for losers.

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Harvey • Sep 29, 2015 at 11:07

After reading this well researched piece by Douglas Murray, one has to ask the question "can it get any worse"? Winston Churchill spoke of tyranny before the last war, well I don't believe the war we may have will be with weapons. Rather it will take the form that is now going on in Western Europe which is uncontrolled invasions by so called migrants. Heaven help us all if Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk get into power.

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Ephesian • Sep 29, 2015 at 09:08

Just typical this man is, of the wishy-washy, hand-wringing, cringing lefties. They toady up to the vilest of people in the hope they will be spared the wrath and punishment of the bigots they support. Someone said to me that I shouldn't worry because Corbyn has not a snowball's chance in hell of being in No.10....yet,we should never underestimate the stupidity of some people, especially as some who are drawn to this man are very young, they have never had to fight for the freedoms we so take for granted. Yes, Corbyn is a very dangerous and deluded character indeed.

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Ivor Silverman • Sep 29, 2015 at 08:52

It astounds me how Corbyn can be nominated as leader of the Labour Party. The only refreshing thing is he has already been taken to task by his own party on a number of serious issues. So not everybody in the Labour Party are fools. The upside is, this gives UKIP more leverage and solidifies the Conservatives. Oh, how Mr Cameron must be laughing. We British maybe silly sometimes, but we are not fools.

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Fred • Sep 29, 2015 at 08:39

He is most likely to lead Labour into oblivion.

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Russell • Sep 29, 2015 at 07:31

The problem with UK politics is that there is an "us and them" dichotomy between the voters across the class lines (that most people deny). This man is Labour, the Labour party is socialistic and for the working class is the general perception and a large part of the reality. The Conservatives are perceived as for the management, middle and upper classes. So Corbyn with his evil agendas will get many votes, yes it could go any way but if the Conservatives don't do something about the immigration problems, man-up and deal with Islamic no-go zones etc. The working classes will never support them and in ignorance will vote Labour because their parents always did and the Tories don't do anything about the problems immigration is causing for the country. Once in he will be a disaster, Britain's own Obama.

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Josephine Bacon • Sep 29, 2015 at 07:25

This article ought to be circulated to all attendees of the Labour Party conference and the Cooperative Movement. Last week, I attended a meeting of the Camden Cooperative Party. Of the ten or so people in the room, three were Jewish (including myself). The other two Jews (one of whom represented herself as being from a "Jewish background") had voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader! When I remonstrated with them, they also muttered something about his antisemitism is exaggerated and one of the Jewish people appeared to claim that he was trying to get the Israelis to negotiate with Hamas and the other Palestinians! Of course, no one else in the room were in any way au fait with Middle East politics and did not appear to care. We must hammer home Corbyn's record on antisemitism (and pro-Irish terrorism) so that it finally sinks in, even with his devotees, and we must do all in our power to unseat him as Labour leader so that some sanity is restored to the Labour Party.

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George • Sep 29, 2015 at 07:10

Thank you Douglas. I always appreciate your writing and the work you do engaging with and confronting the Corbyns and Abbots of this world.You may remember that I asked you some questions last year at Lauderdale Rd on what others not so able to be in the limelight should do.That question becomes ever more urgent.

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